Transition Ministries Group - Latest Comments

Re: Why Churches Should NOT Interview Pastor Candidates

Bud Brown — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 14:12:58 -0000

Thanks for your comment, John. Sorry you've had to go through that travail. Also, your points about male and female pastors is on target. I am a creature of habit in the matter of pronouns, I guess.

Re: Why Churches Should NOT Interview Pastor Candidates

john pehrson — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 12:33:27 -0000

Good points here. I have participated in interviews where it looked like we had the perfect candidate, only to end up disappointed to the point of pushing for dissolution with a severance package just to get rid of him/her. It is so easy to be deceived on resume's, references, and in interviews. Even the faith questions mentioned by Mr. St. Clair can be answered like an Elmer Gantry. Malcolm Gladwell in "Blink" talks about going by "the gut" being as effective as anything else. However, as the UT illustration shows, even that approach is not fail safe. Hiring or "calling" is a constant challenge.
On another point, please don't assume all pastors are male, or only the failures are male. Great pastors and ineffective pastors come in both sexes.

Re: Why Churches Should NOT Interview Pastor Candidates

Bud Brown — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 11:31:24 -0000

Joseph, when I read your comment I slapped myself on the forehead and said, "Duh! He has a great point!" Yes, this is often a given in the search process, no doubt. But churches should ask their candidates to tell the story of their conversion and their journey to faith in Jesus. Thanks for your comment.

Re: Why Churches Should NOT Interview Pastor Candidates

Joseph St.Clair — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 10:59:16 -0000

Of all the things mentioned about searching for a pastor, I am most disturbed that no one ask if the candidate is born again. Do you have a relationship with Christ? Describe it. How do you know you are saved? Describe your conversion experience. All people seem to be concerned about is where did you go to school and how did you do, where where you trained and what's on your resume. You may be selecting a well educated, well trained devil.

Re: An interim pastor should teach best practices for pastor candidate interviews

Bud Brown — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 13:29:00 -0000

Thanks, Mark. Glad to know that this adds value for our colleagues. That's the main objective.

Re: An interim pastor should teach best practices for pastor candidate interviews

Mark Goeglein — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 11:36:24 -0000

Bud, thanks for your insightful and helpful articles. Keep up the good work!

Re: Why Churches Should NOT Interview Pastor Candidates

Bud Brown — Sat, 06 Jul 2013 13:59:07 -0000

Hi, Dave.

Yup, you're on target about resumes and references.

We typically train our client churches to deal with these by (1) rejecting resumes that don't show "verbs of ownership" (which show actual accomplishments) and (2) by doing "drill down reference checking. This is essentially asking the submitted references "Who else do you know that knows Brother Gumball?" We get those names and basically don't bother to interview the initial referrals.

The best way to get a feel for a candidate is to go on the ground. Visit his church for a couple of services. Watch how he interacts with staff and lay leaders on Sundays. Pay attention to how he treats his wife and children. Ask other people about him. (There is some preparatory work that needs to be done before this onsite inspection, but we train for that, too)

And I'm not proposing we do away with ALL interviews, merely the typical unstructured interview that most search committees use. In future posts I'll set forth the best practices on structured interviews, which tend to be much more reliable.

Thanks for your comment.

Re: Why Churches Should NOT Interview Pastor Candidates

Dave — Sat, 06 Jul 2013 13:17:00 -0000

Many things can go wrong in an interview, which you and the supporting articles highlight well. But I have found far more deception in resumes and references than interviews. Tests for pastoral skill are hard to find and not very accurate. Hiring remains challenging to get a good fit, but a quality interview process remains critical to success.

Re: 16 daily tasks to increase an interim pastor’s productivity

Michael Breznau — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 14:15:35 -0000

Great stuff! Thanks, Bud!

Re: 5 reasons why you should and should not be an interim pastor

Rick Foster — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 12:37:45 -0000

Good stuff! I would add one more to each category.
"Why you should...." -because it is exhilarating to inject hope into a church and watch people come alive as they believe it.
"Why you should not...." -if you need people to stay dependent on you so that you have a hard time passing the baton on to someone else.

Re: What’s the biggest ministry challenge you face?

Bud Brown — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 00:48:22 -0000

Over the years we've refined our process for dialing in on that. After we deliver the assessment and recommendations we develop a Memorandum of Understanding that spells out exactly what we'll be working on. Send me your email (you can click the link in my bio above) and I'll send you a sample. Maybe that will help.

Re: What’s the biggest ministry challenge you face?

Caleb — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 00:42:48 -0000

One of the biggest problems I ran into as an interim pastor is that I never knew exactly what the church expected of me.

Re: Why I’m angry with church planters

Bud Brown — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:43:22 -0000

Point well taken.

In answer to your question, my view is that most seminaries just don't "get" the church. As a result, they don't prepare people to lead them. There is leadership training, of course, but most of it is unrelated to what's really out there these days.

Re: Why I’m angry with church planters

john pehrson — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:34:44 -0000

I hear you regarding church planters who tend to provide inspiration and big ideas, but fall way short on long-term strategy. They are often like those people who bought too much house with too little down and now find themselves with an underwater mortgage.
But it is not just church planters who lead congregations into financial ruin, leaving interims, denominational officials, and others to clean up the mess. Why is it so many pastors have so little common sense when it comes to money? "Have faith" is not an excuse to be irresponsible. Rather being responsible is what builds faith and trust.

Re: What metrics should interim pastors watch?

Rich Frazer — Thu, 09 May 2013 10:31:48 -0000

Great insights, Bud.

Re: What if Paul was wrong?

David Derbyshire — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 03:33:26 -0000

Love this poetic response! It really grabs my emotions. If this is not true then Christ died in vain.

Re: What do you say to an interim pastor who wants the permanent job?

Bud Brown — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 12:16:32 -0000

You raise an interesting point I had not considered: the interim who becomes a settled pastor may be dissatisfied with the position. I am aware of how such a person might be tempted to attenuate some actions if the potential for becoming a settled pastor is in view.

But someone who has become accustomed to the rapidity with which an interim can take care of business might become dissatisfied working through the status quo channels. Things move much slower when you're in a permanent position.

Thanks for that insight...

Re: What do you say to an interim pastor who wants the permanent job?

Ernest Hershberger — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 10:22:12 -0000

Bud

Your advice is solid and ought to be taken seriously. An interim with designs to become the settled pastor will be unable to do either faithfully. I don't believe there are any exceptions. DTS '78

Re: Interim Pastor’s Guide: 4 steps to good church assessment

Michael Breznau — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:25:26 -0000

As always, very useful and helpful information. Thanks, Bud!

Re: What if Paul was wrong?

Bud Brown — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:57:26 -0000

Thanks, Chris.

Re: What if Paul was wrong?

Chris — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:48:56 -0000

Hi Bud,

That was some strong, uncompromising stuff. Good to hear it - some parts of the Bible are simply not open to question and that passage from Galatians is surely one of them. You are right, if that was a myth we would have no hope.

Re: What if Paul was wrong?

lizdyer — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 12:47:53 -0000

Bud - thanks for contributing to this month's synchroblog. I love reading all the perspectives. In the past I got hung up on the idea that everything in scripture had to be factual until I realized that even if scripture or parts of scripture are myth it doesn't equal it being "wrong" or "a lie". Truth can be revealed minus facts and figures.

PS We ask that all synchrobloggers add the links to all the other great contributions to the end of their post. Thanks for adding them when you get a chance! You can find the list of links here: http://synchroblog.wordpres...

Re: Interim pastors accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative

Ken Ribe — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:04:55 -0000

I agree that the Appreciative Inquiry process is very helpful with congregations going through pastoral transitions. I have used it successfully in my last 4 interim positions. Along with A.I. I use 2 Dewitt Jones DVD's that set the tone for the A.I. The first is "Celebrate What's Right with the World"--what's right with our church? and the second DVD I use when they are working on re-framing their mission: "Focus Your Vision."

Both are inspirational and offer great ideas to assess where you are and where you are going.

Re: Interim pastors accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative

Guest — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 11:59:33 -0000

I agree that using the Appreciative Inquiry is an extremely helpful tool for helping congregations in pastoral transition to move forward in a positive way. I have used that process in 4 interim situations and found it helpful. I also use 2 Dewitt Jones DVD's to set the stage and tone. The first is "Celebrate What's Right with the World" and the second (as the congregation is moving forward into envisioning their future) is "Focus Your Vision." Both fit very well into the A.I. process.

Re: Four dangers interim pastors face

Kathy Sneller Davelaar — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 10:03:11 -0000

Really good thoughts Bud. I'm grateful!
Kathy Davelaar